


The day to choose life

by wordfrenzy (orphan_account)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Minor Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-14 23:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2207235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/wordfrenzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>‘Who says it’s a joke?’ He falters as he stops, turning to Steve with a straight face, a wrinkle in his brow. His lips are spit-slick, glistening in the shadows. ‘For your information, pal, I never joke about kissing my guy. So, can I kiss you or not? S’ my final offer.’</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The day to choose life

**Author's Note:**

> Ok - I reposted this because the first time round, AO3 put my fanfic halfway down the page upon uploading, which I personally did not find right nor fair. Maybe that's just me. Oh well - please enjoy. It is unbeta'd this time.

They’re in a motel on the outskirts of Washington.

And it’s midnight when Steve feels a hand clenched around his throat. He looks up to see Bucky.

He’s exhausted, in all kinds of ways, that much is seen. Dark, heavy bags are under his eyes, his cheekbones sharp and gaunt, but the look he gives is a mix of murderous and utter confusion and agony. His metal arm shudders, clicks and is worn out with what Steve doesn’t want to think of. It is worn out like the lines on his face, aged like his abused mind.

‘Stop following me.’

‘Bucky—’

It’s not a dream; this is so very real. ‘If you keep following me, I won’t hesitate to kill someone you love.’

 

~

 

Steve believes it.

The Winter Soldier wouldn’t hesitate to stand by his threat, which is why Steve keeps his distance. He doesn’t have any other job to do, other than sit in his apartment sketching or working out — and waiting for the call to assemble the Avengers again, as there is only so much time before it happens — and nothing else.

Sam visits him most days, cooking them a meal and watching TV. Nat does, too, when she isn’t building a new identity for herself, though Steve just sees her as his friend and that is all he needs. He thinks about Bucky every night, too much and bone-crushing, a sad certainty that he might not want to be saved. He knows this, even when Nat reminds him as she hands over another photo of Bucky spotted roaming the streets of New York.

Yet he can’t do anything. He’s never felt so useless.

 

~

 

He’s back at a bar in Brooklyn.

There is the smell of whiskey and smoke, a grey static of noise around him. Men of the 107th drink around him, cheering and singing out of tune, and Bucky is there. All scruffy looking and flushed cheeks, Steve finds it hard to tear his gaze away, always has with him, and tries to blur the edge with more shots, but exempt from drunken influences.

When Bucky is close to passing out, Steve helps him back home. His hand is on the small of Bucky’s back, steering his clumsy footing and it burns against his hand. ‘You’re too good, Steve.’

‘And you’re drunk.’ He hoists Bucky further in his grip. ‘Stink, too. How much did you have?’

‘Enough to know I can’t stand up straight,’ he slurs. ‘But not enough for the drink to make my decisions. Like how I wanna kiss you so bad is all me.’

Steve stops in the middle of the street, his lips tight, but a mixture of want and fear stirring in his gut. ‘Buck, don’t joke about—’

‘Who says it’s a joke?’ He falters as he stops, turning to Steve with a straight face, a wrinkle in his brow. His lips are spit-slick, glistening in the shadows. ‘For your information, pal, I never joke about kissing my guy. So, can I kiss you or not? S’ my final offer.’

It takes five seconds and a deep breath for Steve to slam their lips together, one hand reaching up to cup Bucky’s cheek and the other tight on his waist. Bitter smoke and tough leather invades his senses, along with stale drink, clinging to the roof of his mouth. It’s like electric, crackling over Steve’s skin — it almost hurts, from how long he’s waited for this moment, far too long.

Bucky makes a contented sigh in his throat, leaning in close until they’re pressed together. He guides them into a back alley, crowding Steve up against the wall, the bricks scratching against his neck and heat creeping over his cheeks. He runs his tongue over the seam of Bucky’s lips, and he open up with another noise, a moan, choked and clipped. When Bucky cups Steve through his pants, tracing the strain of his erection, Steve pulls back.

‘No, c’mon,’ Bucky says, following Steve’s lips again. ‘Again.’

He pecks his lips, softly, and murmurs, ‘Not yet, but soon.’

 

~

 

Waking up from the dream is worse than a nightmare. It’s nothing like his nightmares, with bolting upright in bed, his breaths harsh and catching in his throat, and a cold sweat sticks to his back. Dreams don’t leave him unscathed; when he blinks his eyes open, an ache settles in his chest, a dull throb, that feels worse than all his nightmares put together.

He —

It’s horrible and he hates it. But it is the only tangible thing of Bucky he has.

 

~

 

It happens at midnight again, but there is no hand around his throat.

He sees him, right there, in the corner of the room sitting tersely on the armchair. He’s leant forward, hands cupping his face, and it is blank — there is no murderous expression this time, only the confusion, which must be something. Though pain is evident, in the taut stretch of his lips and drawn eyebrows. He wears casual clothing, and a t-shirt that exposes his metal arm, hauntingly amazing in how much power it holds. The red star is covered.

Steve doesn’t move this time. He waits, and listens to the unsteady breathing that echoes throughout the room. It’s gravely and harsh.

He’s too dazed with shock to move really, and with a stupid, desperate notion in his mind that maybe Bucky remembers him; he doesn’t, of course he doesn’t, or he wouldn’t be sitting in the shadows, but rather on the other side of the bed. He carefully manoeuvres himself so he’s propped up against the headboard, watching Bucky with clinical scrutiny.

The look in Bucky’s eyes is familiar, not to the extent it is now, but he remembers. The night he rescued him, walking back to camp. (Let’s hear it for Captain America, he’d shouted, and the commandoes cheered, but when Steve looked at Bucky, he saw. His smile had dropped, and Steve knew why, because —)

Bucky always did his best to protect Steve from anything; the chronic illnesses like heart issues or the risk of pneumonia, bullies beating him up every which way, or simply working his ass off to pay the bills and keep a roof over his head. It’s as if he’d thought all that was irrelevant now, no longer needed. He was needed, is now, to be a friend. To think he might be reliving that memory is a twist of throned wire across his chest, even though Steve needs him — wrestling when they were kids, or kissing on the cheap mattress they could just about afford, are all memories of what Steve considers moments protection wasn’t need, but intimacy.

Time passes in a strangled silence, but that’s okay. Bucky is here, and although he’s withdrawn, isolated, he’s still making progress by just sitting ahead from Steve.

After seventy years of being wiped, and to be shattered so easily, shows just how strong Bucky is.

 

~

 

He stays for another fifteen minutes, still no words spoken.

But then Bucky stands, the chair scraping across the floor in a horrid screech. His face is void of any emotion now, but Steve isn’t sure how to feel when he says, ‘I won’t kill you. I won’t kill anyone.’

 

~

 

(‘Why are you small — in my memories?’

‘I always was, until the serum.’ Steve says the next night, this time Bucky is closer; still withdrawn, breathing heavily and a bruise blooming on his cheek from God knows where. ‘You remember?’

A slight nod. ‘You were skinny and yet—’ He takes in a shuddering breath, all clipped, half-sentences and a reluctance to bare himself, if any. His hands are shaking, and it doesn’t stop even when he balls them into fists. ‘Yet you took on so much shit. Why?’

Steve can’t smile, not like this, nausea sitting in his stomach like a rock. ‘Guess I couldn’t help myself.’

‘No, you couldn’t.)

 

~

 

Whilst Steve fries eggs on the stove, he hears the window open and someone stumble in. As he turns, the, ‘You know you can use the door—’ falling from his lips is cut short, as he’s faced with Bucky all right, except he’s in complete tatters.

Blood dribbles from his split mouth, dirt smudged across his skin, along with various other bruises and cuts, and he limps across to the couch, slumping onto it. He just looks in pain, his jaw set hard and his movements riddled with tremors. His chest rises and falls in harsh pants, panicked and unstable, and Steve forgets about the food, forgets about everything besides the fact that Bucky is hurt. It’s then that he realises Bucky is wearing a suit, the Winter Soldier suit.

He grabs the nearest cloth and wets it, bringing it over, but doesn’t step into his personal space. Instead, he waits for Bucky’s breathing to slow and consciousness come into focus at where he is. He does, eyes briefly darting up at Steve. ‘I tried to kill a man.’

Well, it isn’t what Steve expected, but he tries not to show it.

‘Did you kill him?’

‘No.’ He pauses, a brief moment of pain flashing over his face. ‘I thought I wanted to.’

‘Are you upset that you didn’t?’

Bucky gets up, groaning as he does. ‘Yes, no. I don’t know.’

And then he shuffles over to Steve, uncoordinated and graceless, so unlike what he’d seen before—a manmade machine who is calculated and attentive of everything he does, never an impulse, until that control collapsed in front of him. He reaches up and brushes his thumb over Steve’s eyebrow, delicately, over the tiny scar that remains from having it split open from his punches.

He snatches his hand away, looks down. ‘I beat him. The target. One more punch and he’d have been dead. I couldn’t — I couldn’t do it.’ He shakes his head. ‘Just like I couldn’t with you.’

There is a sharp intake of breath and then Steve is helping Bucky to the ground, just the one hand on his arm, careful not to startle him. Bucky clutches his side, a cracked rib or bruised organ, he doesn’t know, but he wants to help either way. Even when they were kids, when one of them earned themselves a shiner or broken leg (usually Steve, thriving on trouble), the other took care of them.

The rag in his hand has gone dry and hard, so he wets it again. When he brings it back, and wordlessly asks, Bucky gives a slight nod and tilts his head. He swallows around the thickness in his throat, having only intended to hand the rag over, and now he can actually touch Bucky. But when he wipes away the caked dirt and blood with shaky hands, revealing the ragged skin and aged lines, it isn’t the way he imagined or hoped, and it’s stupid. It’s stupid and almost selfish to expect so much from a man who doesn’t know himself let alone others. He hasn’t left yet, at least.

Yet his expression is vacant again, staring off at the wall. Steve wonders what he thinks about whilst he does this, or if he thinks at all. With a mind so complicated, he must think a lot, but not the things one would expect.

‘Have you eaten?’

No answer.

‘You’re welcome to take something —’

‘I can’t.’ It comes out a whisper. ‘I can’t keep food down.’

That, that is what makes Steve break the mask, only for a second. Long enough to feel his face crumble and drag in a shaky breath, but Bucky doesn’t see. Of all things, he can’t eat. They truly did turn him into something inhuman, but now he is a human with the incapability to function.

Steve manages a sad smile. ‘How about some water?’

He gets up even when he doesn’t receive an answer again, filling a cup up and wrapping Bucky’s fingers around it. He takes one sip, and that’s it. From there, they drown in the suffocating silence, sitting up against the wall. Steve doesn’t know how much times passes, but the next time he looks over, Bucky’s eyes are closed — and he’s breathing, slow and shallow breaths. He’s asleep. It’s nothing like what Steve remembers. Where a look of peace used to be, a suffering replaces it.

He decides against grabbing a blanket, knowing the slightest movement will startle him awake. He stays there instead, with an ache in his back and oncoming headache.

When he realises he’s slept, too, and blinks his eyes open, Bucky is gone.

 

~

 

In his next visit, Bucky has an episode.

He wears the face of the Winter Solider.

This time he has a knife, digging into Steve’s jugular. It slices the skin, a trickle of blood running down his neck. He isn’t wearing the thick kevlar gear, but tatty clothes that he must’ve picked up from a cheap supermarket shop or maybe even a dumpster from the smell.

It isn’t the best method, but Steve hooks his leg over Bucky’s and flips them over. He grabs the hand with the knife clenched in it, and slams it against the headboard, hard enough for the wood to crack. He slams it again, once, twice, and a third before his fist unfurls and the knife drops down onto the pillow. But then —

Bucky grasps Steve’s face with his metal hand, and throws him back with a force that makes Steve’s body dent the wall. He reacts just as fast, his foot connecting with Bucky’s chest and flinging him back onto the floor, the screech invading the inside of his skull as he slides. It is an ugly myriad of punches and kicks, split lips and chipped knuckles, until they’re staring at each other from across corners of the room, breaths harsh. Bucky’s arm clicks and vibrates as his hand curls into a fist.

‘It’s me,’ he says. ‘It’s Steve.’

Just like that, Bucky flinches. A full body flinch, his legs buckling and ending up in a heap on the floor. He brings his knees up to his chest, a hand running through his hair.

He lets out a broken sigh. ‘I’m sorry — I, the memories. They were too much.’

‘Don’t sweat it,’ Steve says, maybe a little too casual, but physical contact or too much fussing will probably set him off again. ‘It’s okay. You’re okay.’

Bucky finally looks over at him. ‘Can I stay?’

‘You don’t have to ask.’ He helps Bucky into bed, which feels so natural now, despite never speaking of what happened in their past, even when Bucky pulls him down and pulls him close; even when he feels the lightest brush of a kiss on the corner of his mouth. ‘You never have to ask.’

 

~

 

(There are days where Bucky asks permission to eat or cries in the shower with shards of glass around him, but there are days where he’ll hold Steve’s hand or sling his legs over his lap when they watch a movie, but then there are days where he sits on the windowsill with his hair in a loose ponytail and his hands steady, where he talks about a time of whiskey and smoke and leather, and a kiss that feels like it happened yesterday.)


End file.
